Considering the importance of learning new information in the emerging disease context, this study examines how individuals cognitively process information with an interactivity feature on a website. Modality interactivity, which was operationalized as a slider, was used to identify its effects on user engagement (i.e., cognitive absorption: the degree to absorb the content) and attitudes and behavioral intentions serially. In addition, whether an individual characteristic, such as health literacy (i.e., the degree to read and understand health information), varies the effects was asked.
A single factor (modality interactivity: slider vs. control) experiment was conducted on a health website which provides information about a new fictitious infectious disease, Logi. With 350 participants, the results revealed that modality interactivity increased cognitive absorption and in turn, enhanced favorable attitudes toward the website, the message, and the agency. The indirect effects of modality interactivity also positively influenced the intentions of users to revisit the website, follow the recommendations in the message, and seek further information from the agency about the disease. These effects did not depend on health literacy; that is, participants at all levels of health literacy had similar effects of modality interactivity on attitudes and intentions through cognitive absorption. Discussion of theoretical and practical implications is presented.Advertisin
